Archive for February, 2009

Full keyboard, touch panel wanted by most who try

Is an accelerometer necessary on a mobile phone? graph of japanese statisticsWith many mobile phones both here in Japan and abroad sprouting touch panels and full keyboards, this recent survey by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into mobile phone input facilities revealed a few interesting statistics about them.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 17th of February 2009 1,074 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sample were male, 15.5% in their teens, 17.9% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 16.6% in their forties, 15.9% in their fifties, and 12.4% in their sixties.

The survey also investigated voice input, but it is just the simple pattern matching for speed dial, I believe, a feature standard on many phones. I believe the next big feature for Japanese phones will be the dictation of email messages, but I also believe it won’t work very well and will not find any significant mainstream use.

If I had the money, I’d really love to upgrade to the Sharp S004, featuring all three of the features asked about here, a full keyboard, a touch panel, and an accelerometer.
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Book-buying habits in Japan

About how many books do you usually read? graph of japanese statisticsHere’s a survey I translated last month but it fell through a crack and I forgot to publish it! It was performed by DIMSDRIVE Research, and looked at book purchasing.

Demographics

Between the 29th of October and the 13 of November 2008 9,566 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.2% of the sample were male, 1.1% in their teens, 12.8% in their twenties, 31.3% in their thirties, 31.4% in their forties, 16.1% in their fifties, and 7.3% aged sixty or older.

This was one of these surveys that I really liked the idea of, but as I started translating it I realised it wasn’t living up to my expectations, thus I ended up laying it aside and forgetting about its existance!

Note that books here include manga comics in book form, I believe. I’d have loved to have seen the average spend per person per month on books, how many of their monthly book purchases are from second-hand stores, and how often people swap or borrow books with friends or from libraries.
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February Blog Matsuri and Google Friends Connect

First, Deas over at Rocking in Hakata has an epic edition of the Japan Blog Matsuri, with a pretty massive set of 26 entries to the Foreigh Food Matsuri. Enjoy!

Second, I’ve signed up for Google Friends Connect for some reason:

Feel free to add yourself to the list and… I’m not really sure what happens after the and, but there must be some good reason why everyone at JapanSoc.org is signing up!

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Custom Search

Search advertisement awareness and click-through in Japan

Have you ever clicked contextual adverts in search results? graph of japanese statisticsLooking at my recent statistics, everyone seems pretty much ad-blind on WJT, so looking at this recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into internet advertising, their third regular survey on this subject, it looks like I need to get more goo monitors visiting my site!

Demographics

Between the 2nd and 5th of February 2009 1,092 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 15.9% in their forties, and 28.0% aged fifty or older.

I think one can infer that the 15.3% in Q1SQ1 who find advertisements useful includes most if not all of the 14.3% in Q1SQ2 who purchased items as the result of a click. Although one in seven have made a purchase through a search click, there is no information to the total number of clicks to total number of purchases. In addition, not all clicks are through to purchases; indeed I’ve just blocked one advertiser who is promoting their site that contains nothing but stolen content (in fact, twice-stolen, most likely), which I thought was against the Google AdWords rules.
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One in four digital TV plugged into the internet in Japan

Is your home digital television connected to the internet? graph of japanese statisticsIt’s now about a year since acTVila launched, a facility for using your television as a media centre, allowing download of movies (and other contents) on demand for both free and pay contents. This recent survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at this subject of acTVila.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 15th of February 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were female, 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 14.l7% in their fifties, and 5.3% aged sixty or older.

I’m very surprised to see that a quarter of all digital television watchers have plugged their television into the internet. Although my HDD player is network ready, I’ve never had the urge to plug it in as I don’t really see what the point is. It would enable me to program it remotely from a mobile phone, but I’ve never been in the situation where I thought this might be useful.

On the other hand, I have got a bunch of ideas about what features might encourage more people to plug in which I plan to talk about at work next Monday, so I’d better not say anything here as my employer will no doubt want to bury them in the patent process.

Oh, and sorry for the delay in posting, but I’m in Athens on a business trip, and I couldn’t get my internet to work in the airport lounges along the way!
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Strange but cute Japanese cat actions

Today is the Day of the Cat in Japan, since the 22nd of the 2nd month may be read as “nyan nyan nyan”, the Japanese equivalent of “meow meow meow”. So, to celebrate, goo Ranking looked at strange but cute cat actions.

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 26th of January 2009 1,071 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 51.8% of the sample were male, 6.9% in their teens, 14.3% in their twenties, 28.9% in their thirties, 27.8% in their forties, 11.3% in their fifties, and 10.8% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

For reference, two years ago the cat survey was on cats’ cutest actions, without the strange clause.

If you want some cat kaomoji facemarks, Evoticon.net will surely meet your needs. ~(=^‥^)ノ◎~ (Cat with toilet paper)

Most of the animal shows on Japanese television have regular segments featuring cute but strange cats, so here’s three entertaining clips from YouTube:


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Japanese wives and foreign exchange

Have you ever thought about starting foreign exchange (FX) trading? graph of japanese statisticsWith the economy tanking, and with many firms announcing pay freezes if not cuts, this survey conducted by iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com into wives and foreign exchange is rather timely.

Demographics

On the 2nd of February 2009 300 married women from the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 7.3% of the sample were in their twenties, 44.3% in their thirties, 32.0% in their forties, 13.0% in their fifties, and 3.3% in their sixties.

With perfect timing the Financial Times has a long but worth reading article on female Japanese foreign exchange investors.

I’d love to know more about the 96.4% who didn’t find full time jobs. Were they looking? How many were already employed?
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What Japan Thinks FAQ project

Just a little bit of news about a project that’s underway here on WJT and one that might never finish… I’m developing a FAQ (Frequently Asked (unAsked?) Questions) by pulling out interesting facts from each survey I’ve posted. With this blog coming close to 1,500 posts and with a target of three questions per post, it’s obviously a major undertaking, so I’ll be progressing slowly, but hopefully faster than my posting pace so I can one day get up to date!

I’ve linked the project off from the sidebar, and it can be found (for now?) at http://faq.whatjapanthinks.com/.

I hope that it will be loved by the search engines, so if you see it suddenly going advert-heavy you’ll know it’s getting popular!

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Mobile email and emoticons, emoji and friends

Which do you use the most: emoji, kaomoji or deco mail? graph of japanese statisticsHonestly, it’s not just because I’ve recently launched a Japanese emoticon and smiley dictionary that I’m picking up a number of surveys like this one from Point On Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into mobile phone email use, with the focus for this report on textual and graphical emoticons.

Demographics

On the 15th of February 2009 exactly 1,000 mobile phone users from the Point On Research monitor pool completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were female, 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

Even though I have produced the above-mentioned emoticon dictionary, I don’t actually use text emoticons in my mobile email! Most of the time it is the built-in emoji graphical icons. I’d use more decomail (larger-sized, on the whole, animated gifs) but my phone is one of the first models to support them, so the user interface is pretty awkward to say the least.

I don’t get enough mobile emails to use any other pattern than immediate reply, but my blog email is another matter altogether…
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Uniqlo top casual wear shop in Japan

How much do you spend per year on casual wear? graph of japanese statisticsI’ve not actually been into a clothes shop to get stuff for myself for a couple of years, although the last time I did go it was to a Uniqlo, the shop that comes out way on top in this recent survey from MyVoice into casual wear shops.

Demographics

Over the first five days of January 2009 13,923 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% in their teens, 13% in their twenties, 36% in their thirties, 31% in their forties, and 18% aged fifty or older.

I usually buy casual wear at Passport, as they have a nice (read “cheap”) line of hannari tofu clothes. Otherwise I leave the casual shopping up to the wife, who uses mail order on the whole.
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